Huayu: From an ordinary person to a happy director

Chapter 101: Filming of Spartans begins

Compared to the tension last time, the company was much calmer about the abuse this time. Being criticized right after the show started would affect the ratings, and being criticized for Zhao Linger's death was a sign of deep love and harsh criticism. The audience will follow the show with the expectation that Zhao Linger might be resurrected.

The final result was indeed not bad. The ratings on the day of the finale reached 22%. Although it did not surpass "Little Swallow", it was undoubtedly a success.

He doesn't know whether he can get the first place in the annual TV drama ratings list, but it is certain to be in the top five of the year.

Shi Lei browsed the posts online and couldn't help but curl up the corners of his mouth. The fiercer the online criticism was, the more the audience liked Zhao Linger.

He has promoted Zhao Liying, who will be a top star until 2024 and has just enough money to make money.

However, traffic cannot affect Zhao Liying's future success.

"Take on some variety shows and commercial performances without affecting your studies." After a pause, Shi Lei emphasized again: "Remember, it must not affect your studies."

Yang Mi is seeking transformation in 2024, which shows the importance of acting skills. He cannot affect Zhao Liying's future development because of temporary interests.

"Boss, I know what to do. I will personally keep an eye on it and prevent the agent from accepting random variety shows and commercial performances." Liu Yan said in a serious tone.

"Very good." Shi Lei nodded with satisfaction.

"Boss, when will "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 2" be launched?" Liu Yan had high expectations for "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 2". This drama made two newcomers famous. Such TV dramas that can create stars are very rare.

There are too many TV series where the show is popular but the actors are not.

"The story of The Legend of Sword and Fairy II isn't strong, so we won't be shooting it. We'll go straight to The Legend of Sword and Fairy III." Shi Lei said as he took out the script. The script only had an outline but no detailed content.

Liu Yan took the script, flipped through it casually, and asked, "There are quite a lot of female characters in this play? Are all of them from the company?"

"I'll give you a list of actors. Find someone according to the list. If they're not from our company, sign them to the company. If they don't want to sign, we'll find someone else."

The actresses on the list he gave were basically the same as before, but there were some changes to the male actors, with Jin Dong playing Xu Changqing, Zhou Yiwei playing Chonglou, and Jiang Chao playing Lam Chi Chung.

Except Xu Changqing, the other two are supporting characters and are not very important.

Liu Yan took the list and took a look at it. "Huh?"

"Boss, isn't the female lead played by Zhao Liying?"

"'Chinese Paladin III' has little to do with 'Chinese Paladin I'. It's enough to have Brother Hu to guarantee the bottom line, and the female lead can be used to promote other people." Shi Lei explained seriously.

Perhaps because of the three beauties, "Chinese Paladin III" failed to make the actresses who played the female lead as famous as "Chinese Paladin I". However, the title of "The Four Beauties of Chinese Paladin" is not just a saying. The three women will have a certain degree of fame, but it will not reach the level of "Chinese Paladin I".

However, now that "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1" has just finished, they have started filming "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3", riding on the popularity of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1", perhaps it will have a different effect.

"Okay, boss, I'll start the Chinese Paladin III project right now."

Shi Lei stayed in the office to process some documents before going home after get off work. Now that his domestic affairs were concluded, he was going to go abroad.

Feixun Video Network uploads some behind-the-scenes footage of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 1" from time to time. With the interaction between Brother Hu and Zhao Liying on Feixun, the number of Feixun users has increased.

In addition, Feixun has also placed advertisements on TV stations. The slogan is very direct, talking about celebrities. You can chat with celebrities on Feixun. Although the main chat mode is commenting under celebrity updates, it is true that you can chat.

His words were still spread. "It is best for celebrities not to add fans as friends." This sentence is very important. Celebrities abide by it consciously. They just opened a fan group. However, he was not sure how long the celebrities could abide by it, and he could not control the celebrities from other companies, so he let those celebrities bear the consequences on their own.

In addition to the influence of celebrities, the biggest influence on Feixun Communication is the chip developed by MediaTek. This company is very interesting. It has brought down the cost of mobile phones in one fell swoop, and since this year, copycat phones have begun to flood the market.

MediaTek's chip solution is very unique because it provides a complete system solution.

From the very beginning, MediaTek has taken into account the problems that manufacturers may encounter during the development process, so it will supplement the weak points in the manufacturers' technical capabilities!

Don’t underestimate this step. It is precisely because of this that MediaTek defeated a number of international chip manufacturers. It even has solutions for operating software, LCD, camera and other mobile phone components. The one-stop solution has greatly reduced the time of mobile phone production and reduced R&D costs!

Simply put, the original mobile phone development cycle was six months to nine months, but now it is less than three months.

How simple is the development process?

MediaTek has already prepared the functions of the mobile phone. When developing the product, you only need to select the functions and then design a unique appearance.

Doing so allows terminal manufacturers to save costs, speed up the time to market, and is low-cost. When mobile phone manufacturers receive the mobile phone, it is already a semi-finished product and can be shipped after a little processing.

In order to promote Fetion, he gave MediaTek enough money to allow it to develop the Fetion function. With the help of the star effect, those copycat mobile phone manufacturers would consciously load Fetion, so that every copycat mobile phone would have Fetion.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, when migrant workers earned their first pot of gold, the first thing they did was to buy themselves a mobile phone. This habit continued until 2024.

During this period of time in 05, workers were constrained by their budgets and were willing to buy cheap copycat mobile phones, so sales were pretty good.

To facilitate the use of working people, as long as you open the Fetion on your mobile phone, Fetion will automatically generate a Fetion number, and there is also a novice guide to guide you to add a Fetion number. The other end of this Fetion number is a Fetion chat girl, and users will bind their mobile phone numbers under the guidance of the chat girl.

As long as the binding is successful, Feixun Company will spend a lot of money to send a MMS to the user, which contains the girl's daily life photos.

Finally, the user is guided to make friends online or follow celebrity updates, and the girl who chats with him/her retires after completing her mission.

It would be much more effective to have a group of a thousand girls to chat with than to have Ma pretend to be a girl to chat with.

A monthly salary of 150 yuan for people is only million yuan a month, which is not much.

Compared with the 150 million, the research and development and upgrading of Feixun Video Network is the big expense, and it will continue to burn money in the next few years.

Shenzhen's film and television special effects companies spend even more money, spending 50 million US dollars just to build the company's framework.

Fortunately, the equipment and personnel are in place, and "Kung Fu Panda" has been under construction for a month.

The production cost of the previous "Kung Fu Panda" was 1.3 million US dollars. His team is a start-up, so the cost must be higher. According to estimates, it will cost around 1.5 million US dollars.

The cost was a full 2000 million US dollars more, which made him very sad.

Fortunately, these foreign employees did not do the job in a shabby manner due to the high salaries, otherwise he would have scolded them.

After making sure that the two subsidiaries were on the right track, Shi Lei went abroad with peace of mind.

As soon as Peach Company entered North America, Mike from Warner came to the door.

Shi Lei looked at Mike who came over and said with a smile: "Mike, why is Warner so anxious? You came over just after I arrived?"

Mike felt a little resentful. Although Hollywood had a clear division of labor and someone was responsible for the early preparations for the crew, who could feel at ease when Shi Lei didn't come to see him for several months in a row?
But Shi Lei is now a big director, so he can't scold him. He can only explain patiently: "It's urgent. The filming will start in a month, but you haven't checked the crew's preparations yet. If the preparations are not to your satisfaction when the filming starts, it will be troublesome."

"Okay, I'll go to the crew tomorrow." Shi Lei did not shirk and directly expressed his importance.

His status is not yet enough to make him a big shot in Hollywood. Since Warner is anxious, he might as well go and take a look.

He was busy with work in China some time ago, but he never stopped communicating with the crew over the phone. He learned through the phone that there were no major problems with the crew's preparations, only some details needed him to perfect personally.

For example, communication with the special effects team. A good film requires the special effects team to be involved from the beginning of preparation.

He also had to work with the special effects team to make a sample so that they would know what the style of "300 Spartans" was and have them review the shooting method before they could start shooting.

This is what good special effects must be like, and the special effects team follows the whole process.

For those movies and TV series that have not communicated with the special effects team in advance, not only will the special effects production cost be high and the production difficulty be high, but the worst thing is that there will be loopholes in the special effects.

Of course, those who just want to fool people with 50-cent special effects don’t need to think so much.

The next day, Shi Lei began to check the preparation status of the entire crew.

After three days of inspection, Shi Lei put forward some suggestions for rectification, all of which were harmless issues and could be easily solved.

He then went to see the actors' training.

In order to show that the 300 Spartans were indeed the bravest warriors at the time, the actors (including supporting roles) who participated in the filming underwent six months of intensive physical and combat training before filming began.

The training intensity was quite high. As soon as he entered the training room, he heard the actors who were taking a break complaining, "This training is more painful than death."

Shi Lei did not have much sympathy for this. Due to the existence of the Screen Actors Guild of North America, actors trained for eight hours a day, which was much easier than training in China.

He did not reveal his identity, but just watched the actors' training from the outside.

He was very satisfied with the muscular bodies of the male protagonists, which were not much different from those in the original film.

Shi Lei said, "I'm Shi Lei, the director of 300. Gerard Butler (Leonidas), Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo), David Wenham (Dilios), Dominic West (Theron), Vincent Regan (Captain), and Michael Fassbender (Stelios). You guys should get ready. We're going to shoot a fight scene in three days."

All the actors looked over and looked at Mike next to Shi Lei, who nodded slightly.

"Okay, director." The actors responded immediately.

Shi Lei nodded, turned around and left without any intention of continuing to speak.

The scripts for the plays are freely provided to them by their assistants.

Three days later, Shi Lei led the crew to shoot a short fight scene. Since it was used as a proof for the special effects team, he did not have high requirements, as long as it had the feeling of the original film.

After the filming, he watched the special effects team create the special effects with his own eyes.

Half a month later, the special effects team made a short film in the same style as the original film.

Shi Lei looked at the sample film and breathed a sigh of relief. The special effects tasted right, and the rest was just the shooting, which he was good at.

After confirming the shooting method with the special effects team, Shi Lei took a break in North America and listened to Liu Yan's remote report.

One day, Liu Yan finished his work report and said at the end: "Boss, it's summer vacation now, Zhao Liying wants to take a leave to go travel, saying that she wants to relax."

"Just relax, it's nothing."

"The destination of her trip is Hollywood in North America." Liu Yan said with a smile.

"Huh???" Shi Lei was startled. He naturally understood what Liu Yan meant. The image of Zhao Liying flashed through his mind, and he declined politely, "Why come to Hollywood? Let her have a good look at the beautiful mountains and rivers of our motherland in China."

"Boss, you gave the heroine of "Chinese Paladin III" to Yang Mi. She is a little worried, so she wants to find you. If you don't let her go, she will feel uneasy... This is not right. To be precise, it is her agent and assistant who are uneasy." Liu Yan told the truth.

Zhao Liying is a veteran of the company, but she has not yet fully integrated into the entertainment industry, and her heart has not been completely open. She probably had the idea of ​​taking the initiative to find Shi Lei, but did not have the courage to do it.

Unlike Yang Mi, who was a child star and decided to pursue a career as an actor before she reached adulthood, she joined film crews when she was a teenager and even filmed a motorcycle commercial. She is more accepting of things in the circle.

She speculated that it was Zhao Liying's agent, assistant and others who instigated her.

After all, everyone in the company knew what kind of person Shi Lei was. When Zhao Liying lost the role of the heroine in "Chinese Paladin III", Yang Mi's first reaction was to run to find Shi Lei.

Zhao Liying's agent and assistant probably thought so, so it was natural for them to instigate Zhao Liying. After all, Zhao Liying's position in the company affects their income.

Zhao Liying had the same idea in her mind again, so she just agreed reluctantly.

"Well, tell her that the heroine of Chinese Paladin III was given to Yang Mi because Yang Mi is suitable, there is no other reason, and tell her not to worry." Shi Lei paused, worried that he was not convincing enough, and added: "Yang Xuejian in Chinese Paladin III has a somewhat unruly personality. She is more suitable to play a cute girl now. Yang Xuejian's image does not suit her. Tell her to wait patiently. When I return, I will make arrangements for her."

"Boss, although your reasons are very convincing, she may not listen to them." Liu Yan's explanation makes sense, but as the saying goes, what you can't get will always make you commotion. All the famous female artists in Taolin Film and Television have in-depth exchanges with Shi Lei, except Zhao Liying. If it were her, she would also be worried.

"Tell her this first. If that doesn't work, tell her that 300 is about to start filming. I will be focusing on the filming in the next few months and don't have time to think about other things."

Liu Yan also became serious after hearing this: "Boss, I will try my best to persuade her."

"300" is a huge investment of 6000 million US dollars, so it must be handled with caution.

……

Half a month later, the filming officially began. "300" was invested by him and he was also the producer and director. He had great authority and he could scold or fire the crew and actors as he pleased. The entire filming went on normally.

(End of this chapter)